Elder affordable housing project nears completion

EGLESTON SQ.—Rogerson Communities, a nonprofit elder housing and health service provider, is in the last phase of a redevelopment project that will, all told, bring 124 units of affordable elder housing to the neighborhood.

The renovation and expansion of the Badger Building at the former Elizabeth Carlton House Home for Aged Couples campus at 419 Walnut St. will complete the fourth and final phase of a redevelopment project that began in 2003.

The Roxbury-based nonprofit Forward Inc. owns the campus. The two organizations are partnering in the redevelopment effort.

The final phase will add 37 federally subsidized one-bedroom and efficiency units of housing for low-income elders to the site, Rogerson Communities President James Seagle told the Gazette.

Rogerson has gotten the project through the city permitting process, and the new units will likely be on line by 2011, he said.

“Five years—that’s how long it takes to do affordable housing. We are hoping for three,” he said.

The campus, which includes three other newly renovated houses, also provides a daytime health program for seniors. That program offers elders “a friendly place to meet people, explore new activities and rekindle former interests while having access to needed health services,” according to Rogerson’s web site.

The program serves over 100 seniors a day, many of them from the Egleston Square neighborhood, Seagle said.